


What Does it Matter?

by Dokt0rGunn



Series: Borderlands Prompts [14]
Category: Borderlands (Video Games), Tales from the Borderlands - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark Rhys, M/M, Siren Rhys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-11
Updated: 2017-09-11
Packaged: 2018-12-26 13:22:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12059862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dokt0rGunn/pseuds/Dokt0rGunn
Summary: Tumblr Prompt:"I'm not sure if you're still taking requests but I would be really appreciative if you'd do a Jack and Rhys drabble where Rhys is a siren, and Jack is a manipulative son of a bitch who wants another pawn to charge Vault keys with. Thanks you." - thewritingkornerFinally got around to this!





	What Does it Matter?

The bandit tried to scream as Rhys’ powers clenched around his throat. It was simple now, easy; when Jack had first found him it had been so much harder, not just to focus his powers like this, but to kill. He’d vomited the first time. But Jack was right, he’d seen the videos, seen what they were doing, there was only one way to deal with bandits.

After the first time Jack had held him close with soft whispers of “good boy” and “my perfect little killing machine” the words became the perfect balm for his guilty conscious. It got easier with time, and eventually Jack sent him out on missions, although only when everyone else failed him.

Normally he was to stay where he was, sticking close to his source of eridium and doing his work. It wasn’t glamorous, but the vault key had to be charged if Jack was going to save Pandora.

Rhys tilted his head as he stared down at the slowly suffocating man, “one.”

Jack’s face became visible in the corner of his echo eye's vision, panic was clear on his features, “you keep them out of the secure room cupcake, I’m sending bots and men down, and I’m coming down personally, but you’re my only line of defence right now."

Once years ago Rhys had asked him what was in there, he had been curious for a while but finally asked during one of Jack’s visits. The man had frozen beside him for a moment, his post coital cigarette clenched so tightly he’d snapped the filter off.

Finally the older man had leaned forward to run one hand along Rhys’ face, “something precious to me cupcake, like you, but unlike you what I have in there is delicate,” Jack eased back then, smoke curling around his face, “you can consider that another part of your job here pumpkin, keep that room safe at all costs, capiche?”

Rhys had agreed of course. He always agreed with Jack, ever since the man had saved him on Helios in his first week from the likes of Hugo Vasquez. Jack had told him that he was special, that he could help him save the universe, and that in order to do so, he would have to stay with him. The young man had been sad to leave his friends of course, but in the face of helping his hero, what did something like friends really matter?

He suspected that behind the door was another siren, one with considerably more power than him. After all whenever it came time for him to add a charge to the vault key, it had obviously been charged quite a lot by someone else. But he’d never prodded, never asked, maybe the other siren couldn’t move? It didn’t matter really, all that mattered was what Jack wanted.

Rhys stood his front of the secure room, eyes half on the now nearly suffocated man and half on the approaching bandits. A red haired woman shouted a name and was suddenly next to the man with a crackle of eridium tainted power. The shockwave of her reappearing pushed Rhys back a few feet, and made his teeth ache.

He focused harder and a crack resounded through the room as the man’s throat snapped. Drawing on the erdium pumping through his veins he reached forward again to latch onto the next one.

“Oh no you don’t,” a blue haired woman reached out and Rhys found himself suspended from the ground.

Ah. Jack had said there were two bandit sirens, apparently he was facing both, he hoped the Hyperion CEO would arrive soon, he wasn’t sure how long he could hold out against this.

He sent out another lash with his powers to shove the blue one away, the effort forcing her to let go, allowing him to drop back to the floor. He would have to try and get the collars Jack designed around the siren’s throats. He really hadn’t enjoyed doing field tests for them, quite the opposite in fact. But Jack had been right again, they were necessary.

“We’re doing our best Angel, we’ve just run into a road block,” a man in the back was talking into an echo comm, “well, you didn’t tell us there was a siren here, and he just killed Roland!”

Echo Eye flaring he tried to patch himself into their communication and found himself locked out. Stranger still was that it hadn't been his eye that failed him, it was that _‘administrative permissions are required to proceed’_ , Jack was keeping him out?

“Who the hell are you?” the blue one demanded angrily, hands flaring with her powers.

But Rhys had no interest in talking to bandits, he merely pointed at the red one and smiled, “two.”

The red one let out an enraged screech and ran at him, vanishing, then reappearing with that same shockwave. But he was ready this time, bracing himself against it with his own powers and then reaching forward to snap a collar around her throat.

As Red collapsed to the floor bullets started to ring out and Rhys barely managed to push back. Even then it wasn’t quite enough, several of the projectiles tearing straight through him. He was glad that his arm was still full of Erdium, the substance quickly healing the wounds. However even though he’d just topped it up, it wouldn’t last forever, not at this rate, and he knew from experience just how painful it was to go without.

This had to be fast.

He lashed out again wrapping that psychic tendril around a girl with pigtails, she started to drop even as Rhys reached forward in an attempt to wrap another collar around Blue’s throat. His lunge missed, but at least Pigtails was still suffocating.

Suddenly his vision blurred and a brief warning that he’d been hacked flashed across his eye, his own hand dragged him to his knees and he could hear a girl's voice shout for the bandits to stop. It took him a moment to realize she was in his head.

The bandit’s were continuing past him now towards the door even as he struggled to get back to his feet, he couldn’t let them past. He wouldn’t fail Jack. Another flare of code sent him falling backwards. He could vaguely see Red still collapsed and collared next to her dead friend. At least they hadn’t figured out how to take it off her yet.

 _“He didn’t tell me about you, he hid you from me very well,”_ the girl's voice spoke in his head again and suddenly he could see a face, _“I’m guessing he didn’t tell you about me either.”_

The door opened and he could see beyond it for the first time, inside was a girl, a siren, he’d guessed right. She was hooked up to more eridium than he could begin to fathom. That certainly explained how she’d charged the key so much more than he ever could.

“Get out of my head,” he gritted out finally, it didn’t matter who she was, he needed her to let go so he could save her.

 _“Why are you fighting for him?”_ her voice ghosted over his brain and it made him feel nauseous in his attempts to resist, the strange presence tugging at his memories, _“he’s my father you know, so you should believe me when I tell you, he’s using you.”_

Her father. Oh. Everything clicked into place and Rhys managed to claw his way to his knees, she was beyond important, if he failed to save her, Jack would lose his daughter, something precious and delicate indeed.

However with Jack’s daughter rifling through his mind it was impossible to get further, but maybe he could shock her out. He chose a particularly raunchy memory of Jack railing into him over a medical table and sent it to the forefront of his data-ports records.

Sure enough her presence reeled back from his mind and as quickly as he’d been stopped, he was free again.

“Shouldn’t have looked,” he informed her smugly, and then tore the nearest bandit backwards out of the room. The fight was long and bloody; Rhys truly thought he was going to die and fail Jack.

But true to his word Jack arrived, army of bots and men in tow, they drove the remaining bandits off barely in time. His daughter only had one eridium injector left. But it was enough, she would live.

The girl was glaring at him now, expression portaying that of utter betrayal for some reason entirely beyond Rhys.

“Look at you cupcake,” Jack eased him to a seated position after he finished securing his daughter, “fought off the bandit’s single handed, you even killed one, and nabbed me a siren,” a large hand ran along his face and Rhys smiled softly.

He wanted to be clever, or at least funny, but he was too tired for both, and so all that came out was, “you told me to.”

A slightly stunned expression briefly slid across Jack’s face and then he was grinning, “yes I did, and you’re my loyal little killing machine.”

Rhys beamed a little bit, “so I did good? They got in the room...”

Jack laughed, “nah, don’t worry about it cupcake, of course you did good, now you run along and get yourself a top up on the eridium. They can cut off Angel’s connection to you as well. I’ll come see you after I have a conversation with my daughter.”

The older man ruffled his hair softly, and gave him a look that suggested he’d be coming by for a lot more than just a visit later. So Rhys pulled himself to his feet to go find his handlers, the afterglow of success carrying him through whatever pain he felt.

 _“You’re an idiot,”_ Jack’s daughter’s scathing voice filled his head, _“he lies to you all the time, if you died tomorrow he would be annoyed at best because he cares about no one! You’ve ruined everything.”_

Rhys turned and smiled faintly at the girl before leaving the room, he knew, of course he knew, he wasn't stupid. He wasn’t sure if she could hear his thoughts so he was careful to type the single word he had for her into his systems, _“So?”_

**Author's Note:**

> Alright! Hope you enjoyed this, I had a lot of fun writing it, sorry it took me so long to get around to this prompt!
> 
> And if anyone reading can shoot me a comment if they have the time, I love hearing from all of you!


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